


The Plague Year

by La_Papillon



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, M/M, Male Slash, My First Work in This Fandom, No Beta We Die Like Byakuya, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Petrification is actually caused by a virus, Violence, Yaoi, endgame ship is sengen, post-apocalypse-ish, probably a little darker than canon, strap in folks this'll be a long one, the tsukasa/senkuu ship is very one-sided
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29455968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/La_Papillon/pseuds/La_Papillon
Summary: I've had this idea for a long time (since last March, in fact) but never quite got around to writing it out. This is very loosely an AU re-telling of Season 1 of the Dr. Stone anime, though it'll have plenty of interesting details and diversions to keep things interesting. So far I don't have any plans to incorporate Season 2 characters aside from brief cameos or mentions, though I may do so if I decide to do something else with the 'verse established in this fic. The story mostly will follow the anime, as I haven't read the manga in much detail as of yet.The main difference between this AU and canon is that the victims of petrification are dead and cannot be revived.TW/CW: Very brief mention of a character offering sex in exchange for protection, blood, death threats, knives, violence, deaths of unnamed OCs.
Relationships: Asagiri Gen/Ishigami Senkuu, Ishigami Senkuu/Shishiou Tsukasa, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The Plague Year

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a long time (since last March, in fact) but never quite got around to writing it out. This is very loosely an AU re-telling of Season 1 of the Dr. Stone anime, though it'll have plenty of interesting details and diversions to keep things interesting. So far I don't have any plans to incorporate Season 2 characters aside from brief cameos or mentions, though I may do so if I decide to do something else with the 'verse established in this fic. The story mostly will follow the anime, as I haven't read the manga in much detail as of yet. 
> 
> The main difference between this AU and canon is that the victims of petrification are dead and cannot be revived.
> 
> TW/CW: Very brief mention of a character offering sex in exchange for protection, blood, death threats, knives, violence, deaths of unnamed OCs.

The first time Gen saw a person become Petrified was while he was on a talk show, of all places. The show’s hostess was talking to Gen about his recent addition to the panel of judges on the next season of a reality TV show about magicians. It was something Gen was excited about, as he’d been looking to diversify his talents, and becoming a regular part of a TV show felt like an excellent place to start. He’d been his usual charming self, laughing politely at the hostess’s jokes and sending a few flirty smiles to the camera here and there. The interview had been going very well, and Gen was looking forward to seeing what people had to say about it on social media afterwards. The admiration of his fans was a high that Gen didn’t think he’d ever get tired of riding.

Then the screaming started. It wasn’t the excited, happy screams Gen heard from fans all the time. These were screams of fear and panic, and whoever was making them was clearly in deep trouble. Gen’s head snapped up towards the audience, where a young girl, who couldn’t have been more than 18, had stood up near the back. She practically tore off the thick hoodie she’d been wearing, to reveal that her arm was mostly encased in a layer of thick, gray stone. More stone was creeping up along her chest as well, stretching up towards her face. 

Upon seeing what was happening, the rest of the audience started to panic. People were getting up and running towards the exits, trampling over one another in their panic. More screams filled the room. “Medusa! It’s Medusa!” A man was yelling, pointing a shaking arm at the girl rapidly turning to stone. 

The fear and panic in the room was infectious. The stage crew was trying to get out as well, abandoning the lights and cameras. One of the cameras was knocked over, its glass lens smashing into pieces upon hitting the floor and scattering tiny shards all over. The hostess was quickly ushered backstage by a large, very serious-looking bodyguard in a dark suit.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Gen, who felt frozen to his seat. He’d never been in a situation like this before, and his mind felt as if it was filled with static. No matter how he screamed at himself to _get up, move, get away from here,_ his legs just stayed put. It was as if he was turning to stone as well.

The girl started stumbling towards the set, tears running down her face as her screams started to turn into loud, anguished sobs. By this point, most everyone had either gotten away from the set or were lying around unconscious. “Please, please!” She wailed. “Asagiri-san…I’m so sorry. I just…I wanted to come and see you! I thought it would be OK…I’m your fan…”

The girl’s legs locked in place as they became stone as well, and she pitched forward, landing with a loud _thud_ about ten feet away from where Gen was sitting on the talk show set’s couch. She was still babbling, tears and snot running thickly down her face, which was rapidly becoming covered in stone as well. “Please help me…it hurts…” she whimpered, before her lips were swallowed up completely by the stone.

Gen couldn’t say anything. He could only stare, horrified. He still _couldn’t fucking move._

The last bit of the woman’s body that wasn’t frozen into a grey statue was one of her arms. She stretched it out towards Gen, her fingers trembling, and all he could do was watch as they slowly were covered as well. All that was left was a statue, lying on its belly with one arm outstretched, its face frozen in a horrified expression.  
Gen stayed on the talk show set’s couch, his eyes glued to the remnant of what had once been a human, until the police came and took him to be examined by medical personnel in hazmat suits.

**-x-**

The virus had come about suddenly, out of the clear blue sky. Literally, in this case. The only other creatures that seemed to be affected besides humans were a certain widespread species of sparrow. In every part of the world where this type of sparrow lived, they started falling from the air, encased in stone mid-flight. Their bodies were posted all over the Internet, and it wasn’t long before people were posting pictures of themselves with little stone sparrows all over social media. It was something of a trend, in fact, like eating a big spoonful of cinnamon or pouring a bucket of ice water over yourself. No one knew what was going on, back then. They didn’t know that what had affected the sparrows was contagious, or that it could spread to people.

Until people started to get sick. The virus had a name, at that point – Medusa, after the creature from Greek mythology that could turn people into statues with a look. Before long, cute pictures of bird statues were replaced by horrifying Internet posts showing crews in full bio-hazard gear carrying out people who had basically become statues themselves, their bodies frozen in agony.

The Medusa virus always spread in the same way. A person would develop a small patch of stone somewhere on the body. For a few days, it would spread slowly. At this point the only symptoms would be redness or itchy skin surrounding the stone area, and maybe a fever or fatigue. After about a week, however, the stone would start to move more rapidly as it took over more and more cells in the body. Over the course of about an hour, people would become entirely encased in stone, their bodies convulsing in excruciating pain the entire time. It was a terrible way to die.

The disease spread like wildfire, and there was no cure. Nothing could be done if a person caught Medusa, except try to make them as comfortable as possible in their final days. Hospitals were quickly overwhelmed, and people started dying in the streets. Many countries started locking people into their homes or apartments in a desperate attempt to stop Medusa, basically dooming the residents to die of either illness or starvation. Riots broke out in the cities over food and water, until they were mostly abandoned as hotbeds of Medusa spread. Electricity went out all over the world, as the people who managed utilities either died of Medusa, or abandoned their posts out of panic.

The people who were left formed loose nomadic bands, wandering around and scavenging what they needed to survive. Some formed groups of bandits, preying on the weak. Lawlessness ruled the streets. A few towns and camps were created, semi-permanently for the most part, and the people who lived there viciously defended their homes from outsiders. Within almost two years, society had basically collapsed all over the world. Watching it all, Gen could barely believe it. It all felt surreal, like something out of a bad sci-fi novel.

He left his own apartment after the building next to him was broken into by bandits. Gen knew it was only a matter of time before his place was vandalized as well. The two men Gen had initially hired on as bodyguards had left the previous month after Gen ran out of things to pay them with. Money was worthless now, and Gen barely even had enough food for himself, let alone other people. And both men were straight, so offering sex in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to get his bodyguards to stay hadn’t worked, either. All Gen could do at that point was pack what little he had into a backpack and take off.

For the next several months, Gen wandered around from place to place, doing his best to just survive. It was miserable. The groups of other people he ran across were all tight-knit and eyed him with suspicion at best, and outright hostility at worst. Long gone were the days when Gen could just coast along on his fame as a magician – if anyone he came across remembered who he was, they certainly didn’t say anything.

Gen was very good at keeping everyone at arms’ length. He’d done so for practically all his life, and it was second nature to him. Gen’s family had been long gone even before Medusa, and he had no close friends. The sexual encounters he had in the past were all brief flings, or sometimes casual dating purely meant to give the gossip magazines something to write about. Gen spent many nights wondering if he was going to die alone, slowly petrifying into a stone statue. He did his best to keep safe, keeping his face covered, avoiding places where lots of people had once lived, and leaving any supplies he found out in the sun for several days to kill off any potential germs before handling them without gloves on.

Gen had spent all of his life up until now living in cities, and he had very little idea about how to live “off the grid,” so to speak. His days were spent ransacking abandoned houses in tiny suburbs for supplies, before finding an out of the way place to curl up in his sleeping bag for the night. Even just learning how to start a fire had taken a lot of trial and error, and Gen had used up the last of his cell phone battery’s charge looking up how to do so online. As more and more places were getting picked clean by other groups, however, Gen found himself relying heavily on trading with other groups of survivors he came across. Being a skilled mentalist, Gen was able to cut deals that were weighted heavily in his favor.

It was during one such trade that Gen found out about Stone. He was in the middle of sweet talking a group of people into trading some canned goods in exchange for one of Gen’s mostly-empty lighters and an old blanket. “Trust me, this blanket is incredibly warm,” he said in the tone of voice he formerly used when promoting his books. The person who seemed to be the group’s leader – a tough-looking woman with blonde braids who’d introduced herself as Nikki - was eyeing the blanket suspiciously, her fingers resting at the edge of one of the blanket’s larger holes. Gen put on his sweetest smile – this was going to be a hard sell. “It’s helped me get through some very cold nights,” he continued. “And it’s easily big enough to cover two people.” All lies, of course. Gen had found the blanket crumpled up on the floor in someone’s house, stuffed it in the bottom of his pack, and hadn’t even looked at it again until now.

“I don’t know…” Nikki was biting her lip, but she hadn’t refused yet. “The material seems kind of worn at this point.”

“We don’t really have many blankets, though,” one of the men in the group cut in. “It’s getting pretty cold at night now.” Gen gave the man a small grin. It helped a lot that he’d been a fan of Gen’s, and was clearly excited to meet him in person. He was one of very few people who was, at this point.

Nikki still looked uncertain, so Gen put on a mournful look. “If only I had a sewing kit,” he lamented. “I can’t carry this blanket with me if I don’t know when I’ll be able to fix it. Believe me, I’m reluctant to part with this, but all I can do now is make sure the blanket gets to people who can sew it up and get full use out of it. That would make me very happy.”

Nikki sighed, and Gen could see that she was giving in. “Fine. The blanket and the lighter for 3 cans of beans and a small bag of rice. It’s a deal.” She and Gen held out their gloved hands and mimed a handshake from several feet away. Then they put their trade items down on the ground for them to each pick up from a safe distance.  
As Gen was quickly tucking the food into his pack, wanting to make off quickly before the group realized he’d given them a bad trade, his fan called out to him. “Have you heard of the Stone Village, Asagiri-san?”

Gen had not. It was nearly impossible for outsiders to get into more established settlements. At this point, you had to be a survival specialist or someone with highly sought-after skills, like a doctor, in order to avoid getting driven away immediately. Gen had neither, and he’d stopped trying after the second failed attempt resulted in his nearly getting shot. Now, Gen stayed focused on surviving, and only hoped he could find a more permanent place to stay eventually. To the man, however, he simply replied, “No. Could you tell me more?”

Nikki shot the man an angry look. “Don’t go on to everyone we meet about it!”

“Oh, it’s fine,” the man replied, brushing away Nikki’s concerns. “It’s Asagiri-san after all! The famous mentalist! You used to watch him on TV, too.”

“None of that _matters_ now –”

The man cut her off and continued explaining. “I hear it’s a relatively new settlement, set up in some small town out in the middle of nowhere. And they’re less strict than some places about letting newcomers in! Rumor has it that it’s run by _the_ Shishiou Tsukasa.”

Gen’s ears perked at this. “Tsukasa-chan? The World’s Strongest Man?”

“Yep!” The man beamed. “Guy with muscles like that, it’s not too surprising he was able to start a settlement. We’re headed to Stone Village now to see if we can join up with them. You should try going there too!”

“We’re not taking him with us!” Nikki insisted, seeming even more exasperated. “We’re struggling enough to take care of ourselves out here, and you want to add someone else who we _barely know?”_

“I didn’t say that!” The man said defensively. After seeming to think for a minute, he pulled a pen out of his pocket. “You got a map? If so, lay it down on that rock over there, OK? I’ll mark what we’ve been told the location of Stone Village is on it. Hopefully, we can meet again at the village!”

His mind whirling with the possibilities, Gen pulled out his by now very wrinkled paper map and did as he was asked. He watched the man mark a big “X” on it. “Good luck, Asagiri-san!” The man called out as Nikki grabbed him by the arm and practically dragged him off with the rest of the group.

Gen waved good-bye politely before snatching up his map and examined the area the man had marked off. It looked to be about five or six miles west of where Gen currently was. There seemed to be a small town already on the map, labeled simply as “Stone.” It added some credence to the man’s story of the place having been around before Medusa. 

Gen could barely believe it. Part of his mind was insisting that this had to be another wild rumor. But there was another part that was daring to hope. Gen had known Tsukasa, in the past. He was a famous bodybuilder and wrestler, whose strength and good looks had made him very popular with the public. Gen had been on a show with him once, a “brains versus brawn” sort of thing. He remembered being shocked at actually seeing the man in person. Shishiou Tsukasa was a large man. He’d towered over everyone else on the set, and was seemingly made up entirely of lithe muscle. It was no wonder that people called him the “World’s Strongest,” or that his wrestling nickname was “Primate.”

Tsukasa hadn’t been very talkative either before or after the show, but Gen was hoping he would still remember him. Since Tsukasa already knew him, at least a little bit, perhaps that would give Gen an edge at getting into this settlement? Assuming it existed, of course.

 _Still,_ Gen figured, _I may as well go and check it out anyway. It’s not like I have any better options right now._

**-x-**

Two days later, Gen was frowning down at his map, his fingers tracing along the distance between where he was now and the X marked over Stone Village. He didn’t have much further left to go, and Gen was hopeful that he could reach the settlement tomorrow. The only problem was, it seemed like the fastest route was through a small city.

It was smart to avoid cities these days, and most people did. Due to the relatively higher number of people in close quarters, Medusa had spread like wildfire in the cities. Between the virus, the rioting, and the increasingly draconian measures put in place in a desperate attempt to quell the chaos, anyone who was able to leave did so. From what Gen understood, cities these days were akin to giant graveyards, populated mostly by the silent statues of Medusa victims.

That didn’t mean they were harmless, though. Far from it. From what Gen had gathered in speaking to other survivors during trades, the only people who went through cities were the desperate or the insane. The kinds of people who would stab you in the gut over a bottle of water, or even if they felt you just looked at them the wrong way. Not to mention that the roads around cities were still heavily traveled, meaning that groups of bandits frequently set up ambush points by cities as well.

However, Gen’s map showed that this city was surrounded by cliffs that would doubtlessly delay his journey by at least another day if he decided to try and go around. Not to mention the increased risk of injury in traveling over rough terrain. The city was, unfortunately, the most straightforward way available for getting to Stone Village. If Gen moved quickly, he could probably make it through in a few hours, and then it would be smooth sailing to his destination. Everything would be fine.

After all, if Gen kept telling himself that, it was bound to be the case. The power of positive thinking and all that. He’d even written about it in his last book. 

Gen did not enter the city from the road, as he figured anyone stupid or naive enough to do that would quickly get swarmed by bandits. He walked around the edge of the city for almost an hour, trying to be as quiet as possible, and keeping a sharp eye out for bandits. Finally, Gen found a hole in one of the city’s walls partially hidden by a thicket of trees, which was just large enough for him to squeeze through. He made sure that he was carefully wrapped up beforehand – face mask over his mouth and nose, swimming goggles to protect his eyes, gloves, absolutely no exposed skin. Gen couldn’t afford to take any chances.

Once inside the city proper, Gen moved even more carefully, picking his way across cracked asphalt and around cars that were either still parked in the middle of the road, or crashed into various objects – buildings, street lamps, other cars. A few even had stone people still sat in the driver’s seat, though Gen tried his hardest not to look at those. He also tried not to look at any of the other Medusa victims, though that proved to be difficult, as many of them were in the streets or parks or frozen on the sidewalk. With all of them twisted and frozen in various forms of agony, Gen felt like he was walking through the world’s most macabre art exhibit. Or, more accurately, a wasteland.

The unnatural silence of the city made Gen’s skin crawl. As someone who’d lived his whole life in various cities up until now, Gen was used to the hustle and bustle of people moving along the sidewalks. The steady, rushing stream of vehicles going down the road. The ever-present murmur of conversation that never completely went away in public, no matter what time it was. And all sorts of people, of every single type imaginable, all living together in harmony (more or less). Now, with not a single living person in sight, all Gen wanted was to get out as soon as possible.

He moved from cover to cover as he went along, hiding behind cars and buildings as he carefully checked down each street for people. Gen avoided going that would be too out in the open. The remains of the rioting were everywhere – broken glass, busted windows, piles of stinking garbage in the streets. It made moving around even more difficult. At one point, Gen even came across a pile of clearly human bones, and he had to stop for a few minutes to retch at the sight.

Gen felt like he was making good time, and although his map wasn’t specific enough to show it, he felt that he was probably about halfway through the city once afternoon rolled around. He was feeling optimistic about getting out by nightfall when, all of a sudden, he heard noises. Loud footsteps, laughter, conversation that was still too far off to make out any specific words. Gen’s heart leapt into his throat. _Bandits,_ he thought, desperately trying not to panic.

To his immediate right was what looked like an apartment building, and Gen quickly ducked inside. Hopefully, he could cut through the building to another street and get past the bandits without any trouble. They were coming closer, and Gen heard one of them say, “Hey boss, don’t think we’ve checked that building yet. Could be some good stuff in there.” 

Gen swore quietly. Of course this would be the case. He hadn’t had a single good thing happen to him since the Medusa outbreak started, so why start now? He went to the nearest door and pushed on it, feeling surprised but also incredibly grateful that it swung open easily. The lock was clearly broken. Gen went in and carefully shut the door behind him just as he heard the bandits enter what was once the building’s lobby a minute later. He heard a loud metallic _CLANG_ as one of them knocked something over. Thankfully they weren’t quiet, so it was easy to predict where they were. 

Gen hurried through the apartment, which looked like it had been lived in once, but the thick layer of dust over everything made it clear that it had been abandoned for some time now. Once he reached the bedroom, Gen yanked open the door to a closet and hid inside. _I’ll just wait for the bandits to pass through, and then I’ll sneak out the back. Everything will be fine,_ he told himself.

Gen sat in that closet for what felt like ages, trying to ignore the cramp in his legs as he heard the bandits make their way down the hall, cursing as they tried to force open the doors to the various apartments. They were all incredibly loud, but then again, Gen supposed you didn’t have to be quiet when you ran with a group that was competent enough to have survived this long, not to mention staying in an abandoned city.

He winced at the sound of a door slamming open nearby. “Hey boss!” A rough male voice called out. “This one’s open!” The voice sounded close by, which could only mean that they’d discovered the very apartment Gen was hiding in.

 _Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck,_ Gen swore internally as he heard what sounded like all the bandits enter the apartment, whooping and cheering. Then came the sounds of drawers slamming open, pieces of furniture being knocked to the floor, and glass breaking as they started ransacking the apartment. They couldn’t be that smart, Gen figured, as the fact that the lock on this apartment was broken in the first place clearly meant someone had already gone through it.

Gen’s heart beat wildly in his chest as he heard the door to the room he was hiding in open up. _Please don’t go in the closet, please don’t go in the closet…_

“Well well well, what do we have here?” 

The door to the closet swung open, and Gen was greeted with a man’s sneering face. He was filthy, wearing ragged clothes, and Gen desperately tried not to wince at the awful smell coming off him. Nobody was able to bathe regularly these days, but this guy looked like he hadn’t even been trying. He towered over Gen, and his biceps looked to be as big around as Gen’s thighs. Not to mention the baseball bat slung over his shoulder that had several long, rusty-looking nails jammed through it.

Gen’s mouth was covered by his mask, but he did his best to crinkle his eyes up into what could be seen as a smile. “Hello there! You, ah, woke me up! I was just taking a nap here -”

“Hey boss!” The bandit acted as if Gen hadn’t even spoken, turning his head as he called out to the rest of his group. “There’s someone in here!”

A minute later, three other men entered the room, all of them sneering as they saw Gen crouched in the closet and desperately trying not to look terrified. They were all big guys who were various degrees of filthy like the one holding the bat. The one who must have been the leader stepped forwards. Gen noticed thick lengths of chain wrapped around both of his huge fists, and couldn’t help swallowing nervously.

“Well hey there, little man,” Chain Guy said. “What’re you doing here in our city? We don’t take too kindly to visitors, see. Especially those who don’t introduce themselves beforehand.”

Gen tried to laugh, hoping to play the situation off as some sort of a misunderstanding so he could get away, but only managed to make a pathetic little rasping noise. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down apologetically, “I really didn’t know this was your city. If you just let me go, I’ll -”

“I don’t think so,” Chain Guy sneered. “See, we gotta make an example outta you, or else people might start to get the wrong idea about us. They might think we’ve gone soft, and that they can come and just take what they want from us.”

“Oh, I really don’t think -”

“Hey boss,” Another bandit, this one standing by the doorway, spoke up. Gen could see that he was holding a large, splintery plank of wood that, like the first bandit’s bat, had several long and rusty nails driven through it. “I recognize that guy! He’s that famous magician from TV!”

Chain Guy’s eyes took on a more interested look, which made Gen’s stomach churn. “Oh, _really?_ We got a big-time celebrity here, boys!” The rest of the group started to chuckle and jeer, and all Gen could do was try not to move too much so they wouldn’t think he was trying to get away and try to kill him. 

After about a minute, Chain Guy held up his hand and the other bandits fell silent. “You must have some pretty good stuff on you, then!” His hand shot out and roughly shoved Gen aside. Gen hissed in pain as his side hit the closet wall. Chain Guy pulled out his bag, and he and the rest of his goons started to go through it, making various noises of interest and dismissal. Gen peeked just a bit further out of the closet. Maybe, while the bandits were distracted with his things, he could sneak out and make a run for it.

His heart sank as he saw the bandit with the plank still standing in the doorway, staring right at him. He smirked at Gen, who pushed himself back into the corner of the closet.

Eventually, the group of men finished looking at Gen’s things and turned back to him, their faces sporting nasty grins. Gen pushed himself as far back into the closet as he could, wishing he could just phase through it and out of this nightmare. “Well, that’s everything I have,” he said, trying to keep his tone light but unable to keep the tremble of fear completely out of his voice. “Could I please leave now?”

Chain Guy was snickering and shaking his head. “Don’t think so, big-shot celebrity. I think we’ll kill you and leave your body up as a warning to anyone else who might get the bright idea of comin’ through here without giving us our due. Lucky for us that you’re so recognizable.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, sharp butcher’s knife. It was as dirty as everything else about these bandits, and Gen tried desperately not to think about what the brownish splotches all along the blade were.  
With nothing left to say or do, Gen accepted that his fate was to die being gutted by bandits in the tiny closet of an abandoned apartment. He never thought that this was how he, a once-famous mentalist, would go out. Then again, he hadn’t expected everything to fall apart from some horrible virus, either. Gen closed his eyes as the bandits all whooped and cheered around him. He braced himself for the sharp, hot pain of the knife piercing his flesh. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too painful.  
But the attack never came. Instead, Gen heard loud cries of shock from the bandits, which quickly turned to anger. He could hear people fighting, which quickly migrated out of the room Gen was in and into what sounded like the building’s main corridor. There were the sounds of metal striking metal, screams of pain, and what sounded like the _crack_ of either bones breaking or skulls hitting against hard surfaces. He didn’t dare to move or even to open his eyes.

Finally, everything fell silent. Gen sat in the closet for what felt like an eternity afterwards, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. His heart was still beating rabbit-fast at the thought of his narrow escape from death – and that his safety was still by no means assured. As the silence persisted, Gen worked up the courage to slowly open his eyes and peak out of the closet.

The dead body of one of the bandits was at the end of the room, fallen partially over the bed and soaking the mattress through with blood. There was a nasty wound in his neck, right across his jugular vein and still thickly oozing out more blood. The room had many other splatters of blood as well, all across the walls and on the floor. The hot iron scent of it was thick in the air. 

Gen swallowed hard, taking deep breaths and willing himself not to vomit. This was easily the worst thing he’d seen since he first left his apartment and started wandering around. What sort of person was capable of taking down a big, armed man like this? Other bandits? Was Gen next? Had they seen him in the closet? Where did they come from?

Gen’s wild train of thought was derailed as a woman walked into the room. Like Gen, she was entirely clothed, though her outfit seemed to be made of more lightweight material designed to be easy to move in. Unlike Gen, her entire face was covered with a gas mask. Her most identifying feature was her hair, which was a soft pink color and pulled up into a high ponytail atop her head. The curls at the ends reminded him a bit of flowers.

Also unlike Gen, the woman was wiping a very large, very sharp-looking knife clean of blood with a scrap of cloth. Likewise, her clothes were also spattered with gore. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize she was the cause of the bandits’ deaths. Panicking, Gen scrambled back against the wall as the woman looked up, her posture going stiff upon seeing him.

“Please don’t kill me,” Gen babbled. “I’m not with the bandits, I promise! I -”

“I know you’re not a bandit.” The woman cut smoothly through his babbling, her voice cool and collected, like she hadn’t just stabbed a group of people to death a few minutes ago. “They’re all dead.”

“Ah,” Gen replied weakly. For a long moment, the two of them just stood there, staring at each other. Finally, the woman wiped a last bit of blood off her knife and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Gen scrambled after her, not wanting to be left alone in case there were more bandits out there. “Who are you?”

The woman stopped, and turned slightly to face Gen. “Momiji Homura,” she said after a moment. “You’re Asagiri Gen. You were on TV.”

“Yes, I am!” Gen brightened a little at the recognition. “Are you a fan?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Gen sagged a little. So much for trying to exploit any admiration Homura might have had for him.

Homura turned and started walking again. “You should be fine to leave now,” she said. “I need to get back to Hyouga-sama and Tsukasa.”

“Hang on – did you say Tsukasa?” Hope started to bloom in Gen’s chest. “Are you from Stone?”

Homura again stopped, but this time she faced Gen fully. “So what if I am?” Gen noticed her grip tighten slightly on her knife. He had to choose his words carefully, in order to keep Homura from thinking he was a threat and deciding to give him the same treatment she’d given the bandits.

“I’m actually heading there myself. I knew Tsukasa-chan, before. We were…acquaintances, and we were on TV together at one point.” Gen forced himself to relax slightly, to act casual. “I’m hoping he’ll remember an old show-business colleague and let me become a member of Stone. I can make myself useful in a number of ways, and I want to help Tsukasa-chan however I can.” 

Homura was quiet again. Gen didn’t dare move, for fear that she might try to stab him, but fought to keep his relaxed posture. “Fine,” she said after a few moments. “Come with me, then. We’ll see what Tsukasa says. No guarantees, though.”

Gen couldn’t believe his good luck. Going from nearly dying, to finding someone who could take him the rest of the way to Stone. It was quite the dramatic swing of fortune. Maybe, just maybe, things would work out after all. For the first time in a very long time, Gen dared to hope for something good.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think?
> 
> I'll do my best to update regularly, but as someone who is probably too old to still be writing fanfiction (I've been out of school for some time now), I work a full-time job and can't guarantee I'll always have a lot of time to write.


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